


Cream Cheese

by nebulabetta



Series: Extended Universe [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, extreme teenage awkwardness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23988550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulabetta/pseuds/nebulabetta
Summary: Riku makes a terrible mistake.
Series: Extended Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/808422
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Cream Cheese

Riku was picking at a scab on his knee when Sora came bounding back into the living room, two bowls of ice cream tilting precariously in his grasp. Halfway through summer, Sora was more brown and more dazzling than ever when he smiled wide, braces winking in the living room light, his eyes crinkling up from the force of his smile.    
  
He was almost too much to look at directly, but then, Riku usually felt that way, tan and smelling vaguely of the ocean or not. This was just what Sora was like, too bright, too much...he had no idea how everyone else managed to hide their reactions to him, only that he seemed the worst at it.    
  
"You want some ice cream, Riku?" he asked warmly, setting his own chocolate candy covered creation down on the edge of the sofa as he groped around for the remote.    
  
Riku's heart lodged somewhere in his throat, and if he had ever known how to speak at all, surely the only word he knew now was a gargling string of sound. He managed a "sure" anyway, aiming for aloof but willing to settle for audible as he thrust his arm out, hand reaching for the second bowl.    
  
"It's in the freezer; go get some," Sora instructed, setting the second bowl down in front of Kairi where she was stretched out across the carpet, flipping aimlessly through a magazine. It didn't make much noise against the soft surface, just a soft scrape of the bowl against the fibers. The embarrassed roar in Riku's ears as his heart plunged screaming down into his small intestine was much louder, but he was at least half sure only he heard that.    
  
They were both staring at him now, probably because he was staring at both of them with an expression that probably closely resembled an owl that had just been sucker punched in the face, his hand still hanging limply in the air, feeling heavier and heavier with each passing moment. He didn't know how to recover from that, so he tilted his head forward, bangs swinging over his eyes as he offered a shrug and a grunt of acknowledgement, dropping his hand and pushing himself up off of the sofa to go and fix his own ice cream.    
  
He made his way to the kitchen, wondering why he'd even come to Sora's house in the first place, simultaneously knowing he'd never turn down time to hang out with Sora because it was...time to hang out with Sora. The problem was that Sora seemed to always invite someone else too, usually Kairi, and he could do without it being thrown in his face that Sora had such a big, obvious crush on her.    
  
It was annoying because- because he wanted to spend guy time was all! If he wanted girl problems he would get his own girlfriend (and that was why he hasn't, thanks). In fact, it probably wouldn't hurt to remind Sora that most girls seemed to think he was the cuter one. Kairi probably did too. He bet he could win her over and then where would Sora be? He was lucky Riku was a nicer friend than he was, only offering his would be girlfriend snacks...   
  
Continuing his mental tirade, Riku jerked open the refrigerator, and grabbed a bowl from the side of the sink. He could hear the show they'd all been watching start up again, and he grit his teeth at the added annoyance of missing the start of it.    
  
He groped around for an ice cream container, scowling darkly at his feet as he heard Kairi speaking followed by the too sincere burst of laughter that she drew from Sora in response.    
  
He plunked the carton on the counter and banged around for a spoon, but it didn't elicit any silence from the living room, and it was possible they hadn't noticed or just didn't care. His stomach felt sour as he dipped the spoon into the container, unseeing as he scooped several large spoonfuls into the bowl, returning the container and reaching into the fridge to squeeze some strawberry syrup over the haphazard pile he'd plated.    
  
After breathing in and out slowly to regain his composure, Riku returned to the living room, taking his position on the sofa back perhaps a bit more defensively than he had the last time.    
  
Sora and Kairi were both seated on the floor, absently eating their own treats as they debated one of the plot points of the show.    
  
Both of them were wrong, of course, and Riku rolled his eyes, shoveling a heap of ice cream into his mouth and preparing to correct them both after he swallowed it.    
  
Except, he didn't quite manage to swallow it.    
  
Rather than pressing down on already melting ice cream, soft and almost too sweet, his mouth clamped down around something with the consistency of wet cement, buttery and almost nauseating as it glued itself to the roof of his mouth, the strawberry syrup dripping into his throat as a final overwhelming element to what might have been the worst horror his mouth had ever faced.    
  
Shocked, he glanced down at his bowl, spoon still sticking from his mouth. He knew before he even saw, though, the mistake he'd made. His bowl wasn't filled with ice cream. It was filled with cream cheese.    
  
His mind immediately flashed to the belated awareness that he'd opened the refrigerator instead of the freezer, the plastic tub cheerily advertising the sticky mass souring on his tongue. Unable to bring himself to swallow, his eyes darted over to Sora and Kairi. They were focused on the television, periodically spooning bits of their own perfectly normal (well, in Sora's case normal with an alarming amount of candy topping) desserts into their mouths. They hadn't noticed.    
  
Riku felt faint. If he got up to go and throw the bowl out, they might ask him what he was doing. Or just look at him and see into the bowl at what was more and more obviously not ice cream. He couldn't very well deflect any questions or defend himself with it still swelling up in his mouth as he was convinced it was doing.    
  
There was really only one safe option. He was going to have to eat it all and then go and rinse out an empty bowl.    
  
Closing his eyes to steel himself, he worked his tongue from underneath the heavy lump molding itself into the shape of his mouth, laboriously pushing it back down his throat as it was chased by the slimy trickle of warmed strawberry syrup.    
  
He opened his eyes again breathing slowly through his nose. His entire mouth felt like it was caked in butter, streaks of sickly sweet syrup cutting the fatty residue with cloying contrast. On the coffee table in front of him was a half finished glass of soda, slightly watery and dripping with condensation down onto the coaster Sora had dramatically provided him, clearly having been reminded incessantly about it by his mother. Actually, that was probably a good thing, because Riku knew he was just as guilty as Sora of forgetting to use one entirely. Now, though, he found himself staring at the damp circle greedily, envious of all the moisture it had soaked up.    
  
He reached down, taking a few sips of the bitter melted ice water that collected on the surface of the soda beneath it. He couldn't stand the thought of drinking the sugary drink with the task still left at hand, so he set the glass down forlornly, looking back to his bowl.    
  
If he could just finish this, he promised himself, he would fix himself a giant glass of water. The biggest glass. And then he would drink it all. Twice.    
  
Three times, he corrected himself as he managed to swallow a second bite. Maybe four.    
  
By bite four, however, his throat felt entirely clogged, and he worked it in vain, practically able to hear the sticky slide of it constricting around smears of cream cheese left behind as they were forced down his throat and into his protesting stomach. He looked desperately back at the glass of soda, but not enough time had gone by. The ice hadn't really melted any further, and there was nothing for him to sip off of the surface of the sweet carbonation that was sure to do nothing but clash in the worst kind of way with the slick thickness of the cream cheese coating his tongue and throat.    
  
Desperate and doing his best not to show it, he raised the glass to his lips anyway, pulling past the rim to press his lips to the condensation on the side. His sticky tongue pushed up against the cool surface as he tried to lick up water droplets without being noticed. Flattening his entire tongue against it like he wanted would be too obvious. Of course, throwing the cream cheese away and solving the actual source of the problem would also be too obvious.    
  
He swiped murky trails along the glass, leaving cream cheese tainted droplets in his wake, still miserably thirsty but not entirely parched by the time he deemed the glass had offered up all he could ask of it. He pressed his lips to the cool side one last time, reaching out to put it back.    
  
Kairi was staring at him. He balked, tipping his head reflexively to keep his face hidden. How much had she seen? His bowl was angled so that neither of them could see inside, and it wasn't as though he'd been licking the glass like a dog or anything. It had been more like a-   
  
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no, Kairi thought he was kissing the glass, didn't she? What kind of weirdo reason would Riku even have to kiss a glass, but- but it wasn't like he could just explain that he was licking it, not kissing it, because that begat the question of why he was licking it.    
  
And he couldn't explain that without explaining that he was doggedly choking down a pile of cream cheese covered in obnoxiously sweet strawberry syrup, truly a dessert from hell. He couldn't explain that because he quite frankly would rather die. He would honestly just prefer death.    
  
Kairi had turned back to the TV, and she didn't seem to be concerned with anything he was doing any longer.    
  
Marginally relieved, he dropped his gaze back to the bowl of cream cheese, breathing out slowly and willing his protesting throat and stomach to be brave and bear with him just a little bit longer. He was three, maybe four bites away. Four full bites. Six, seven small ones. He broke it down in his mind, envisioning cutting away each bite, pressing it in his mouth, swallowing, scraping the sides of the bowl, sauce finished, done.    
  
He could do this.    
  
He just hadn’t. 

  
Alright he was pretty sure he could do this, but convincing his mouth to open and his hand to betray it by shoveling more in was not something he was sure he could do.    
  
He started watching Sora and Kairi instead, both rapt with attention to a show he actually liked and wanted to pay attention to. For a moment he didn't even remember what they were watching.    
  
This was ridiculous. Frustrated, he scooped a double mouthful directly into his mouth in one swift motion, smearing a bit across his lips, cheeks puffed out as he quietly hid that with the hang of his hair, working his tongue and throat furiously as it left his mouth and stuck, a lump lodged firmly against the base of his throat.    
  
In too deep to despair, he reached a hand out for his glass, feeling the tacky cream cheese residue against his fingertips as he forced down three labored swallows of watered down soda. The bitter bite of soda tendrils mixing into the chilly melt of his ice cut and cooled trails of cream cheese coated across his tongue and the insides of his cheeks, nearly gagging him, but he did manage to loosen the lump, feeling it slide down his throat in sickening rolls.    
  
He divided the remainder into four more careful bites, outright wincing at the last two after first watching Kairi and Sora to make sure he was being ignored.   
  
He was, and he was going to be hurt by that immensely when it was less of a blessing.    
  
By the time he finally licked his spoon clean, his stomach was roiling angrily, and he could feel the bubble of strawberry syrup and the muffled drag of still thick cream cheese trying to climb its way back up his throat.    
  
His bowl was scraped clear of evidence and he'd missed too much of the show to even care anymore. He needed to leave.    
  
The only thing more embarrassing than getting caught accidentally eating a giant mass of cream cheese would probably be being caught having done so because he vomited it all out across Sora's mom's coffee table.    
  
"This show has gotten really stupid," he said, pushing himself up off of the sofa and setting his bowl down. "I don't know why you two like it so much."    
  
Sora and Kairi turned to look at him, Sora disappointed, Kairi unimpressed. He frowned harder beneath the fringe of his bangs at that. Who did she think she was, anyway? Sora valued his opinion, wasn't that enough for her?    
  
The sour feeling in his stomach wasn't just the beginning of a cream cheese revolt. No, no it wasn't enough, and neither was he, and the more time she got alone with Sora, the faster the brunette would end up siding with everyone else on the matter of Riku's worth and impact on anything.   
  
He could practically feel the cheese curdling in his stomach.    
  
"It's kind of a filler episode this week, I think," Sora reasoned for them both, waving his hand blithely in the face of what could easily have become an argument.    
  
"I sure liked it, but Riku likes the plot more than anything. Give it another chance next week, okay Riku?"    
  
Kairi crossed her arms, sighing. "Seems like he could be more interested in character development," she muttered and Riku was instantly torn between snapping at her for being a bitch and knowing that he was the one being a bitch to begin with. Well, those or the third option of just throwing up on her, which felt more like the former than the latter, probably.    
  
Sora flashed a dazzling smile, almost seeming to sparkle as though he was in a television program himself, the gesture almost tangibly dissolving away the anger in them both.    
  
The cream cheese and stomach acid slurry was threatening to spew out of Riku's mouth now, but he still felt his stomach rising further, his organs crowding his throat too much to let anything through anyway as his cheeks grew hot behind his hair under the force of Sora's beaming gaze.    
  
"...yeah, whatever," he consented after a long moment. His stomach wasn't going to award him many more of those.    
  
"Late-er," he attempted to dismiss the whole thing once more with a graceful stalk out, but he burped instead, his stomach noisily and angrily squeaking and yowling in protest. He could feel his abdomen and throat constrict simultaneously, and he didn't saunter out so much as dart, weaving clumsily as he escaped the house to throw up in someone's bushes three doors down and then just keep going and going until he got home, fairly certain he could never show his face anywhere ever again.    
  
\--   
  
"You think Riku was really bored?" Sora asked Kairi, flipping channels aimlessly.    
  
"No, I think his stomach hurt, and he didn't want to tell us he had to puke or poop," Kairi said bluntly.    
  
"You mean because he ate a whole bowl of cream cheese?" Sora suggested, glancing back to the kitchen where they'd set Riku's empty bowl in the sink for him.    
  
"Yeah, I was wondering why he would do that to himself," Kairi tutted, taking the offered remote when Sora found nothing in particular to watch, "but he gets so anxious when you point out weird things he does, I didn't want to freak him out. It wasn't that big of a deal to begin with."    
  
Sora sighed and shrugged in affectionate agreement, making a mental note to call home and ask Riku's mom if he was feeling better later.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this more than Riku did.


End file.
